Week 8 Reading Reflection

Angel capital was interesting for me in this chapter because I had never heard about it before.  I also thought it was surprising that the median amount for an informal investment is $700,000, because that seems like quite a lot. I was also shocked to read that theres only around 500,000 people in the United States that have over a million dollars in wealth, I assumed there would be so many more, considering our population is over 325 million people.  Venture financing was a little confusing for me, when the pool talked about if a group of people was available for venture financing, and then came up with a number of what the pooled money would amount to, I was unsure about where this number came from.  If I were to ask the author a question, I would want to know what methods he thinks is best for collecting the funds for a start up.  Or if he has started a business, how did he collect his funds and does he have any regrets?  I did not disagree with anything written in this chapter.

Half-way Reflection

This is the image google uses in it's definition of Entrepreneurship. So far I have really enjoyed this course and I think the image above defines it well. I have definitely developed the skills needed to succeed in this course.  In the beginning, when the assignments would require video recording and going out and talking to actual business owners, interviewing random people, and various other intimidating activities, I would forgo doing those assignments because I was much less comfortable doing them.  As I saw my grade slip, I learned that I just have to be confident and go out and do the assignments, even if they are intimidating.  As I did more and more assignments, I became so comfortable with going up to random strangers and entrepreneurs and asking if I could ask them a couple questions.  I was frustrated that I lost those points earlier in the course, just because I was nervous about the assignment.  My advice to those students who are taking this class next semester is just to jump in and start learning to be comfortable with the activity based assignments right away, because you eventually will have to. When I was interviewing Entrepreneurs, I interviewed someone who I realized was just the owner of a chain restaurant, so he did not create the restaurant himself.  After searching for more entrepreneurs and running into this same problem over and over, I felt like giving up.  But I stuck with it, and told myself I would try a couple more businesses; and I found a business owner at the next shop I went into, who was willing to be interviewed.  The key is persistence, so I would encourage future ENT students to be persistent, confident, and driven.  Its important to stay on top of the work and check canvas frequently, as deadlines can pass quickly.

The Twenty Percent

The first video is an audio recording of my interview with the owner of Maude's Cafe, and the following three interviews are of three Maude's customers.  It was interesting to see that what the owner thought Maude's biggest problem, was unmentioned in the interviews with customers.  The customers seemed to thing customer service, the time it took to receive what they ordered, and the seating at the cafe was insufficient or less than desirable.  They only rated these issues as a problem from about a 4 to a 6, so not too bad. The owner, however, did not mention any internal problems that Maude's had, but only mentioned the homeless coming to disturb the customers and ask for money.  The owner did not accurately understand the customers problems, but the owner also did not know that I was going to interview her customers as well, so this might have been why she did not feel the need to disclose any internal problems, such as customer service.

Week 7 Reading Reflection

What stood out to me in the reading was that companies and the marketing industry in general is always struggling to find the best way to segment their customers.  I had assumed that marketing strategies had been perfected, when it came to measuring the customer base.  After reading this article, I learned that marketing strategies are always a mystery for companies, as well as marketing segmentation. In this article, the attitudinal type of segmentation confused me the most. Financial sophistication, time spent on investments, and risk tolerance seemed difficult to measure and the results seemed a little unhelpful.  The majority of people spend zero time on investments, so how would you compare this whole group of people? I was also confused as to why effective segmentations only have one or two issues, and why they need to be redrawn after they lose their relevance.  I would ask the author, how do the issues lose their relevance? How do brands measure random acts of purchasing? Do they believe there is a method and reason to all customer purchases?  Do they account for randomness in their calculations and analysis? Overall, I agree with the author that there is no perfect marketing segmentation, as society changes, peoples preferences for purchasing will change.  Societies values can change from spending money on physical items to spending money on experiences such as music festivals and traveling.  I do not think the author was wrong about anything in this article.

Free Money

For this assignment, I went to the outdoor area between library west and Heavener Hall. I approached people who looked like they were busy walking somewhere, just as the assignment requested. I expected all 5 people to take my dollar, because who doesn't want another dollar? When the conversation started I just stopped people and kindly asked them if they wanted my dollar.  When they asked why, I just said various reasons such as "because its a nice day" or "because who couldn't use another dollar." I got an overwhelmingly positive response: 4 out of the 5 people I asked kindly took the dollar and walked on.  One guy, however, did not want the dollar, and walked away quickly. I went with a friend, who is also in ENT3003, to do the assignment, and I was surprised when so many people she asked did not want the dollar.  So in my opinion, giving away the dollar was a lot harder than I imagined, because I never imagined people saying no.  I did not make any assumptions about the people I went up to before I went up to them, I just went up to people abruptly and at random.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

From my feedback, I concluded that people were a little confused with my pitch.  I think on my first pitch, I focused too much on the fact that the tracker was identical to a credit card.  Some people I interviewed about the product thought the tracker was only a replica for a credit card so a thief would try using that card instead of a real card.  I got the response, "Well, what if the thief tries all the cards?"  Now I tried to make my Elevator Pitch clear that the tracker is only for tracking purposes, not to stop the thief from spending any of the money in your wallet.  I also included the fact that a lot of people are now making purchases on their cell phones, so less people are carrying wallets.  Because of this, if you are carrying a wallet, it is more likely to be stolen, because the decrease in the amount of wallets for thieves to steal.  My third change to my product and pitch was the addition of an app or website, where people can access information about the whereabouts of their wallets.  Some of the people I interviewed seemed confused as to where they could track it from.  Overall, the two comments I received on my first elevator pitch were very positive, and people seemed excited about the idea.

Week 6 Reading Reflection

I thought this article was the most interesting reading we have done yet.  I was intrigued to read about how profitability is the most important factor in competition of businesses.  The size or intensity of the business and the product is less important, the key is how profit the business or industry is.  For example, soft drinks or toilet paper could be a more profitable business than an airline company.  Even if the product or service is intense, like in the restaurant industry or the airline industry; the profit margins could still be very slim, because there are many substitutes and high costs of supplies.  It was a bit confusing to hear about how some products can be considered substitutes or considered competition to a firm, even if it is a very different product or service.  It's interesting how one type of product can effect another's sales, even if they don't seem closely related. I would ask the author how connected these 5 forces that shape strategy are.  I would want him to go into detail about how they effect each other and how forces can be considered as more than one.  Also are there any other forces that are almost as important than the top 5? I do not think the author was wrong about anything in the article, I was just interested to read how some businesses can effect others who are distantly related, and how businesses can be more profitable with small, unsubstantial products, than companies with very important and highly respected services.